Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 25 May 2025.
Baptism of Lydia by Marie Ellenrieder, 1861 (Source)
• First Reading: Acts 16: 9-15 (Paul’s vision: ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’)
• Second Reading: Revelation 21: 10, 22 – 22: 5 (Vision of the New Jerusalem)
• Gospel: John 14: 23-29 (Anyone who loves Me will obey My teaching. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you)
One of the disappointments I found working in the planning office was the number of times an interesting proposal was submitted, offering a high quality development.
Then slowly but surely, once approved, its most distinctive features would be diluted. Ballachulish slates replaced by plain tiles; stone facing replaced by facing brick and then rendered; detailing never really installed and landscaping dying off.
The initial vision reduced by time and cost pressures; or possibly never intended in the first place. A rather cynical, sordid even squalid approach to development which may affect the living space for generations.
But now look at the lesson from Revelation. It describes the New Jerusalem, already prepared by God, and just waiting for the fulness of His people to enter and populate it.
Every detail considered, every refinement provided. And most of all, this is not a human construct. It is not a political programme or manifesto.
It does not demand a political movement to achieve it – even when there have been political movements to do just this: a bit of legislation here, some taxes there, a publicity campaign, and of course plenty of scapegoats to blame if (or when) it all falls apart.
No, the City of God is already prepared. Our relationship with it is to seek it and to desire it, not so much as our own design and achievement as the blessing of God in which He desires to live with His redeemed and faithful people. It is His loving gift, prepared by a groom for His bride, in this case the fulness of those who belong to Him in Jesus Christ.
But this is a rather strange lesson to put next to the passage from Acts in which Paul, now accompanied by Luke, goes to Macedonia (Greece) and meets Lydia.
And this is followed by the gospel reading in which Jesus speaks of the obedience of His disciples to His teaching and of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
So first in our lessons is the dream given to Paul in which he is called into Europe and away from Asia Minor (or Turkey). It is a turning point in his missionary journeys. Here he has met Luke who would compile his stories of the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Luke would give us a new perspective on the ministry of Jesus, and how He reached out to the outsider: the sick, the foreigner, the outcast. Luke who would express more vividly than any other writer the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The one who took such an interest in the healing miracles of Jesus, bringing a professional interest to it, without undermining or trivializing these miracles themselves.
But then there was something else. A simple encounter by the sea shore with Lydia and the establishment of the church in that city. This led to the letter to the Philippians, a brief but love-laden commendation of the life of the believing community in that city.
All of it coming out of a dream which Paul recognized as a calling from God and not just the result of a particularly enjoyable evening with friends.
Paul was willing to allow God to lead him in his missionary journeys, he would be flexible enough in his actions even when he was never going to depart from his faith in Jesus Christ, or his commitment to the moral demands of the gospel. A strong, living faith.
But then look at the gospel.
To know Jesus fully was to love Him above and before all others. Other loyalties and commitments would take their place in the light of a personal faith in and love for Jesus as Lord.
But then to love Him is to follow Him and obey Him. It is to continue in Him when times and circumstances are difficult. When the way ahead seems uncertain and even obstructed.
To follow Him is to do so when times are difficult, when family and friends do not understand, even when we may be seen as odd, quaint, possibly rather rigid, maybe old-fashioned. Definitely unfashionable. Easily mocked and abused.
It is to follow Him, trust in Him, keep talking to Him when things are confused, dark and even hostile.
For this is the second part of the gospel lesson. The Holy Spirit is to be given in order to strengthen our faith and our relationship with Jesus. He is given to remind us of what Jesus said and did, and often enough to put a new strength in His word.
There is a new joy in reading it and finding that there are things that we had never suspected, even when they are there staring us in the face. There is a new kind of light, a new focus, vividness, as blurred lines become clear, shadows dissipate, and He who is the Way, the Truth and the Light comes into a new kind of focus.
Therefore we are never alone. We may feel every kind of emotion, and be drawn into every kind of understanding, but we never stop being drawn close to Jesus Christ as a person, who is totally with us and utterly intimate. Closer than our own breath.
In this, He is never apart from us, regardless of our feelings. Maybe that is why we can be completely honest with Him, since nothing is going to be hidden from Him anyway.
And so day by day, event by event, meeting by meeting we are called to allow Him to draw closer to us – to pull down the barriers, the hesitations and the obstructions that we allow to exist, despite all we believe.
